


Things You Said...

by s0norus



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has Nightmares, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Not Canon Compliant, Pining, Post-Black Panther (2018), Steve Rogers Feels, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-02-05 01:43:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12784233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s0norus/pseuds/s0norus
Summary: Steve can't force Bucky to remember what isn't there. Even though it breaks him, he has to let the past be in the past and move on with his life.Bucky can't expect Steve to put his life on hold after all these years when it's clear he doesn't feel the same. Even though it breaks him, he has to let the past be in the past and move on with his life.The love just isn't there anymore. Or so they think.





	Things You Said...

**Author's Note:**

> YIKES it has been a hot minute how's it going gamers lmao
> 
> so. life got in the way, long story short, and i ended up abandoning this work again because of that and also because of horrendous writer's block. but while re-reading it i realized...i hate how i was writing it before lmao, i know i can do better. so i'm working on cleaning up this fic and making things more cohesive, and making sure everything makes Sense. 
> 
> when will it be updated? couldn't tell you! i'm sorry if you've been waiting this long just to find out i'm basically starting all over again, but c'est la vie, i refuse to let this float about on the internet in the state it was previously in. 
> 
> anyways, i hope you enjoy!
> 
> (i'm using [this](http://kat2609.tumblr.com/post/128729996090/prompts-1-things-you-said-at-1-am-2-things) as my guideline, and i was inspired by this post to make this work!)

Bucky talks in his sleep.

He always has - before the war, before he fell, before HYDRA pulled his mind apart and plucked out the pieces they deemed unimportant. Back in Brooklyn, when they lived in a shoddy, drafty apartment that did little to stave off the bitter cold of a New York winter, the only thing that provided a bit of solace to Steve while he shivered under a thin blanket was the slurred, nonsensical bits of dialogue he knew Bucky was bound to mutter at some point in the night. Often times, when Steve would give up on sleep entirely and resolve himself to yet another sleepless night, he'd stare across their shared bedroom at Bucky, bedraggled and beautiful with slashes of moonlight illuminating his face, and listen to whatever random bits of information tumbled out of his mouth.

Eventually, after they'd both admitted that they harbored feelings for the other and decided to push their twin beds together, Steve would enjoy not only the warmth and sturdiness of Bucky's larger form encompassing him as he slept, but also the whispered absurdities that puffed against the back of his neck as dusk bled into dawn. It was comforting; familiar. If nothing else, he was glad Bucky at least was sleeping peacefully enough to dream.

Things were very different now.

Bucky doesn’t talk in his sleep - he screams; shouts things in Russian that Steve can’t understand, nor does he think he really wants to. Steve doesn't strive to listen to it anymore for comfort; he shoves his head under a pillow and blasts music in his headphones most nights to try and block it out. It doesn't work.

Despite the fact that they no longer share a bedroom, Steve can hear Bucky as clear as day, as if he were still sleeping right beside him. He wants to rush to his side, he wants to shake him awake and climb into bed with him so he can hold him, he wants to do anything that will alleviate whatever pain Bucky is feeling. But he doesn’t. He can’t bring himself to.

Bucky’s gained back so much. Memories, namely, but he’s also started remembering how to be _himself_ again as opposed to the weak imitation he methodically mustered up to please Steve. He laughs more, he cracks jokes, and sometimes Steve could swear he hears a Brooklyn accent curling itself around certain words when Bucky speaks. But the one thing he can’t seem to remember is how he and Steve used to be.

He knows they were friends, sure - he still knows things about Steve that no other person on this planet could possibly know, not even Sam or Natasha. But he doesn’t recall the lingering gazes, the languid summer afternoons spent wrapped up in each other and talking about how one day they’d be able to simultaneously afford Steve’s myriad of medications and a meal fit for two grown men, the kisses they stole under the cover of night during the war; nothing. That must’ve all gotten stripped out with the HYDRA programming, somehow.

Initially, Steve had assumed that maybe Bucky merely didn’t feel comfortable bringing it up just yet, which was understandable given the circumstances in which they always seemed to be together under. He didn’t expect Bucky to declare his undying love for him in the middle of Shuri’s lab while she was performing a wellness check on him, after all, so he held out hope that once they were in the safe, secluded home T’Challa had set up for them in the mountains of New York - which would be hidden underneath the same cloaking technology that blanketed Wakanda for added security - Bucky might open up and confess what Steve hoped so deeply he still felt.

Days passed. Then weeks. Then months. Then a full year passed of them living in their new home, and not a single hint that Bucky remembered more than he was letting on was ever dropped. There was no warmth in his touch anymore, no heat in his eyes when he looked at Steve, nothing sly or secretive behind his tight-lipped smiles that might’ve suggested Bucky viewed him as more than a friend now. One minute, there was a chance, and the flame inside Steve’s chest had been stoked to live again; the next, ice water had extinguished the embers and he had to find a new way to keep warm.

It broke Steve’s heart, shattered him inside completely that the man he still loved so entirely didn’t feel the same anymore. He couldn’t comprehend how their relationship had been wiped out so easily, nor how Bucky didn’t even remember that he’d once had _feelings_ for Steve. But he couldn’t bring himself to talk about it. He didn’t think it was fair to essentially make Bucky’s recovery about himself and their past relationship when there were much more pressing matters at hand, and he didn’t want his best friend to feel guilty about something he had no control over. So his lips remained sealed.

He can’t trust himself to go into Bucky’s room at night to try and comfort him, because he worries that all of the things he’s wanted to say will come spilling out without warning, and he won’t be able to stop them. The most he can do is paint a smile on his face and pass Bucky his coffee in the morning when he trudges out of his bedroom, eyes bloodshot and face weary and dark with exhaustion. Bucky will lie and say he just stayed up too late if he catches Steve looking concernedly at him for too long, but they both know otherwise.

Steve wonders if Bucky’s even aware of what he does during the night. He’s dropped hints countless times that if Bucky ever needs to talk about anything, or if he feels he needs to contact Shuri again to tell her something isn’t quite right, he’ll be right there by his side. But Bucky Barnes has gone his entire life gritting his teeth and lying about things being fine, and that is the one part of his personality that stubbornly refused to be scrubbed out no matter what, so all of those conversations predictably went nowhere.

He knows Bucky would soldier through his pain alone until the end of time if he had his way; he and Steve have always been alike in that regard. It’s unclear, though, if Bucky truly thinks he can deal with the guilt and trauma of the past seventy years on his own, or if he’s decided that shouldering such a massive burden alone is his punishment for all the atrocities “he” committed. Steve could talk until he’s blue in the face about how none of that was Bucky, it was all the work of HYDRA and the Winter Soldier, he can’t keep kicking himself about something he never had any control or say over, and Bucky will always find a way to counter his argument. It’s simultaneously infuriating and heart-wrenching.

In spite of everything, no matter how much it hurts to sit with the fact that Bucky just doesn’t feel that way anymore, and he very well may never feel that way again, Steve counts his blessings daily that Bucky is alive, and that he’s safe. He was safe in Wakanda, of course, Steve knew that - T’Challa assured him hundreds of times that there was no way anybody knew he was there, and even if they did, they wouldn’t be able to bypass the Dora Milaje in order to do him any harm. Still, any time he left the country with Sam or Natasha in order to complete a mission, his eagerness to stop bothering Shuri with his endless questions while he paced her lab was quickly replaced with dread and anxiety about what _might_ be happening, and he was itching to go home almost immediately. These anxieties lessened significantly when Bucky was deemed well enough to video chat with Steve while he was away, but the knot in his stomach never fully unraveled until his feet touched Wakandan soil.

He considers himself lucky that he gets to wake up and see Bucky every day now because he knows the alternative too well. While it isn’t what he initially pictured, something is better than nothing, and he’s simply grateful that Bucky isn’t rotting away in Romania anymore or locked away in a SHIELD-operated prison. He can learn to move on, he did it before when Bucky fell from the train (never mind that there was always a part of him that was doggedly devoted to the mere _idea_ of Bucky, so much so that Peggy seemed to understand that that was a hole she simply couldn’t fill) so he could do it again. There was no use holding out hope for something that would never happen when he could learn to instead value the relationship he and Bucky had now.

Or, at least, that’s what Steve thought.


End file.
